Bryant Park always provides beautiful scenes. How I love it. I took these on my way to work this morning. I think I'll post them on their Facebook page. Why not.

Tell me this doesn't look like lips and teeth?

All images from the same building in Old City, Philadelphia

I love the decay on these letters. LETTERS and USED should both become fonts, for sure.

While I'm at it, I'm throwing in an escutcheon for good measure. Because who doesn't love a good escutcheon?

a subway stop on the g line

Perhaps it is because Brooklyn-based artist Bede Murphy is my friend, and I have loved his work since the moment I saw it one Spring day in 1993 in Boston's South End, that I look at this 'work' in the subway and see it as Murphy-esque. Click on this link to view his art. I call him Matt.

I don't know why supermarkets want to eliminate plastic bags. Without plastic bags, we could not have this New York skyline on the Pulaski Bridge.

Please note: If you look closely, you will notice that I lined up the Empire State Building with the Empire State Building.

A plant grows in a bike basket in Brooklyn.

My handlebars, sans plant.

I never thought of turning my bike into a planter, although I might as well, because it has been sitting in my hallway, unridden and locked to the banister since the movers brought it up the three flights of stairs three years ago. But I am still a bike rider at heart. I always yield to bikes, look both ways in the bike cross walk, never drive a car, and other courteous things, including giving couriers "the nod."

I hope this bike basket windowbox which I spied on Franklin Street in my neighborhood survives Hurricane Hanna today.

With all the rampant "improvements" happening to buildings in New York lately (improvements, hah!), I thought I should document the beautiful map above the door to the Albert Building at 935 Broadway for your (and my) continued enjoyment.

curbside table and chairs, in situ

After I see a particularly thought-provoking art exhibit, I think everything is art, which is not a bad way to think when you think about it. But given what I've observed as the New Yorker's desperate need to eat and drink outside in an outdoor patio at all costs, even if it means huffing exhaust fumes or sitting right next to a pile of garbage, I am not sure if this particular installation I found on the curb of Greenpoint Avenue Saturday morning was someone's al fresco breakfast nook or something else entirely.

I was so happy to find Street Toast again, at last. In the interest of full disclosure, I cleaned up the image a bit. It had been mercilessly tagged. Normally, I leave the work in the state that I find it; however, I wanted to admire Street Toast in its less-tampered-with form. Oh if I only got a picture of the great 3-D version last year. Who doesn't love toast?


Photographed on Berry in Williamsburg.

Photographed somewhere on the Lower East Side.

Big Sky Country in Williamsburg

The wall of bricked-up windows looks like a minimalist painting

I am certain there was a building here just recently, across the street from Beacon's Closet on North 11th Street in Williamsburg. On the way to Pierogi on Friday, I passed many of these work sites; too many for my tastes. I feel as though I should have photo-documented every block three years ago, so I could know now what used to be there.

I call this triptych the Neapolitan ice cream of peeling paint. Strawberry, chocolate and vanilla, all represented. Well more like strawberry, chocolately-vanilla, and cherry. Close enough anyway. A feast for the eyes, if you like this sort of visual feast. Which I do.

[image by way of emmas designblogg]

A placid meditative image for this snowy day. This reminds me of the kind of stylized waves you can find on Japanese screen paintings, lacquerware and textiles in the 18th century. I will look through my Japanese art books and try to find some good comparative images for you. Here is one for now.

Details from Passing Through, the 115-foot mosaic mural by Al Held (2004) inside the Lexington Avenue-53rd Street station. Each section is an incredibly strong composition on its own; seen altogether it is spectacular. Take the E, V or 6 and come up for a viewing. Enjoy your Friday.

Take a closer look at the shapes that compose this unusual grate at the ticket window at Grand Central. Two different repeating patterns. The repeating circles act to magnify the repeating quatrefoil-squares. Inside each circle you can begin to see an hourglass shape of sorts emerge. I would love to know more about this pattern.

What is it about tile mosaics that make me so happy? This work is one of a pair on the West Side on 50th Street near 11th Avenue, marking two side entryways to a public high school. Pretty great. One panel was so large, I had to take it in two parts.

I must investigate the artist, Fogel, and Crovatto Mosaics further.


***
Here is what I found out about Crovatto:

"Crovatto is located in a little town in Italy, and its chief industry is making venetian glass mosaics (too expensive to have done in the States). To make the venetian glass, workers pound out very small pieces of colored glass and put them on individual pieces of mesh. They would then ship the pieces of mesh to us. Installation was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle." [source: thepeoplemover.com]

This Website, about the Travisanutto Giovanni SRL Studio in Italy, while not the source of our Fogel '77, is an interesting one to investigate. Click on Photo Gallery. It seems that Giovanni Travisanutto worked with "Crovatto Mosaics Inc., an affirmed Studio in New York, led by a man of common Friulan roots, Mr. Costante Crovatto."

***
I just found the artist: Seymour Fogel (1911-1984), born in New York City, graduated from the National Academy, apprenticed with Diego Rivera, awarded several mural commissions by the WPA in the 30s and 40s, his work included in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum and the Corcoran. Here is a Website about another of his murals in Texas. According to this site, Fogel created 22 major murals in his life "using such media as ethyl silicate, a process he helped pioneer in the 1950's, glass and tile mosaics, oil paint on canvas, and other experimental multi-media compositions."

Take a closer look. Art and artfulness is all around you.

I especially love the positive and negative space shapes created by this repeating quatrefoil pattern. New York is the city of quatrefoils. I have never seen so many.

I was walking along the designer blocks of 5th Avenue one day and became very enthralled with the door handles at Fendi. The materials, the shape, the sizable size. All quite statement-making. The materials remind me of Japanese laquerware that is sprinkled with gold leaf, and all of it suspended in a resin. Clearly, it was my penchant for plastics that drew me closer.

As I photographed the door handles, many people slowed to take a closer look, and also appreciated them. That was a nice chain reaction I was pleased to have caused.

If you stand at Noguchi's Cube at 140 Broadway in Lower Manhattan, and look further downtown, you can see this monumental incredible work in orange and steel. I also wanted to show you what really goes on at the base of the sculpture. This touched me. The sculpture is part of the fabric of the street. It is loved.

The hungry tourist is dazed and can only see the Halal cart.
I think he has failed to notice the monumental orange sculpture entirely.
Maybe after he eats, he will regain consciousness.


The Halal cart at the base of the sculpture serves the people.

And the sculpture's leg serves to protect and cradle the doors of the halal cart
as they provide food to the hungry wandering tourists.
A wonderful symbiotic relationship.
You won't see this detail shot in the art books.

Lower Manhattan has a wonderful collection of public sculpture. I remember years ago seeing a Richard Serra somewhere in that neighborhood, and I'll never forget it. This steel Cube by Isamu Noguchi is worth a closer look. You will find it in front of Brown Brothers Harriman at 140 Broadway.

These exquisite molded ceramic bricks adorn the front of 311 E 54th Street, an apartment building built sometime between the 30s and 50s. I wanted you to have a closer look. From this raking angle, the bricks almost look like scales of a fish. I love the colors.

When you are in the neighborhood, go take a look at the whole building. It is across the street from the orange sculpture.